Effect
 | Effect | Applies an Image Post Processing Effect to a part of the Hierarchy Tree. |
The Effect Node is able to add Image Post Processing (IPP) Effects or Blending to only a part of its Hierarchy Tree. By using this Node you can still organize some parts of your scene in a single layer that need different IPP Effects or blending methods.
To achieve this, the subtree of this node will be rendered onto an own Texture. Then the effects are applied and lastly blended with the defined Blending onto the rest of the Scene. The Texture will be rendered straight onto the rest of the Scene, which means that Z-Testing is not applied during this step. The renderer is only affected by the render order of the nodes but not by the distance to the camera (as usual).
Keep in mind that Z-Testing will not work for objects "inside" and "outside" of the Effect!
Ventuz will create a Rendertarget on the GPU's memory for each Effect Node. Thus, make sure to use as few of them as possible.
Properties
With the Blending Property you can change how the resulting Texture of the Node should be blended onto the rest of the scene. There are five Blending Modes of which you can choose. The Gain property defines a factor which the texture should be multiplied by before blending.
With the 
-Button you can add Effects or effect groups to this node as they are documented in IPP Color Corrections, IPP Distortions, IPP Filters and IPP. All effects that are available for layers are also available for the Effect Node.
Resolution changes the size of the used Render Target. This can drastically reduce the impact on the GPU Performance and Memory. Especially with Distortion effects like Blurring you will most of the times not need the full resolution of the Layer. Lastly the AntiAliasing Property Group can adjust the used Anti-Aliasing for the resulting texture.
The Outputs return the Width and Height of the used texture and the resulting Texture that would be blended onto the rest of the scene. With it you can use the Texture more specifically in your scene. Use an Alpha Node with the Block on Full Transparency Flag unchecked to hide the Nodes behind the Effect Node.
Limitations
Due to the way the Effect Node is working there are some limitations to it listed below:
- Its subtree does not affect or use the Z-Buffer of the rest of the Layer, so the Z-Testing will not work between those two.
- It does not work properly together with 3D Layer Effects. Especially the Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion will not be applied and occluded correctly.
- Like the Blending Node its blend modes are only applied to objects inside the same layer and not to other layers. The Glow Blending is an exception to this.